The Big Stories to Watch for at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang

The 2018 Winter Olympics begin tomorrow in PyeongChang, South Korea, and it's poised to be a great year for dramatic moments at the Games (in fact, in some ways, the drama has already started, as athletes face brutally cold temperatures in the single digits while they practice for their events). First, the most important thing to know: South Korea is 14 hours ahead of the U.S. Eastern time zone, so while NBC will be live-streaming events in their NBC Sports app, there will also be nightly prime-time coverage of the day's big events on NBC. Also, the events start on February 8, but the opening ceremonies are on February 9 (and closing ceremonies are February 25). Before the action kicks off, take a look at our primer of what to look out for and the potentially historic moments to come.

Vonn's place as a superstar skier is already cemented—she just nabbed her eighty-first victory in a World Cup event—but this year represents something of a comeback for her on the Olympic stage, since she was unable to compete in the 2014 Sochi Games after tearing her ACL in 2013. Given how well she's been skiing so far this year, she is in a great position to leave South Korea with some additional Olympic hardware, proving that athletes really can come back from anything.

New faces to watch

It's easier to have a long Olympic career in winter sports than summer ones (just look at Vonn, who is heading to her fourth Games and has been competing at the Olympic level since 2002), but there are some new, exciting athletes hitting the scene this February. For example: 20-year-old figure skater Bradie Tennell came, as the Chicago Tribune put it, "seemingly out of nowhere" to win this year's U.S. Championships last month and earn a spot on the Olympic team. Tennell, appropriately, will be skating to music from the 2015 version of Cinderella during her free-skate program. There's also the story every nineties kid who was obsessed with Cool Runnings has to love: the first Jamaican women's bobsled team, Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian and Carrie Russell, will compete in the Winter Olympics this year (and their sled is nicknamed Mr. Cool Bolt after the movie and Jamaican Olympic legend Usain Bolt).

It's hard to believe, but figure skater Adam Rippon is the first openly gay male athlete to qualify for the Olympics ever (other openly gay athletes, like Johnny Weir, came out after their Olympic runs, or after their first time qualifying, like Gus Kenworthy, who is going to his second Games this year). Especially since the last winter Games were in Russia, it will be exciting to see athletes openly embracing their LGBTQ identities on the world stage this time around.

Political shakeouts

No Olympics is without some political controversies. For one, while Russia is officially banned from competing in the Games by the IOC because of past violations, athletes from Russia can still compete—just as independent entities. This could affect medal counts for traditionally dominant nations like the U.S., since instead of one athlete representing Russia, many athletes representing themselves might qualify in certain events (particularly figure skating). Another big (though very different) political story to watch: Kim Jong Un announced he is sending his sister Kim Yo Jong to PyeongChang for the Games—the first time any member of the Kim dynasty has visited South Korea. We'll have our eyes on the interactions between the two nations as the Games continue for sure.

Worldwide the pay gap between men and women has been a huge topic, and the female athletes involved in winter sports have been a big part of that conversation. The U.S. Women's National Hockey Team almost boycotted last year's world championships over their fight for equal pay—which they won, by the way. And last year Vonn began campaigning for a "Battle of the Sexes"–style ski race between her and the male skiers in her events (at the time she told CNN she's already beaten "a lot of them" though "not all of them"). The sport's governing body turned her pitch down in 2012, and while Vonn's original goal of getting the race in before the 2018 Games didn't pan out, the global attention on the sport could bring the question back up. Especially as the first Olympics of the #MeToo era, there's a lot to keep an eye on here.